The Dragon's Fury (Book 1)

by D Mickleson

  Abigail pranced, her hand locked tightly on his while he stumbled after her. She released him only when they’d reached the far wall opposite the opening. Here, beside some shelves stacked with yellowed manuscripts, was a rectangular brass box with three levers rising to waist height. Each was topped by a crystal handle. To Triston, these levers took on an ominous aspect when Abigail nervously grasped the nearest and told him to brace himself.

  “Wait. What’s going to—”

  Too late. She gave the lever a sharp tug, and the room began to spin. Triston swayed but managed to keep his feet. Then he goggled at the wall. He would never have believed it possible, but it was actually revolving in a circle. The noise was deafening. Louder by far, ten times louder, than the common room at The Dragon’s Rest even at its most raucous. A grating of stone on stone, and a groaning like the dying cry of some impossibly overgrown beast, filled the chamber. He held his hands to his ears.

  Then, as suddenly as it began, the cacophony died. The wall halted. Triston turned to Abigail in amazement. She was smiling at him, her face alive with glee, and her right hand was now resting on the middle lever.

  “Wait. Don’t pull that. First tell me what’s going on,” he said, stepping forward and placing a restraining hand on hers. She jerked away at once.

  “How dare you touch me!”

  “Sorry! Look, just hold on a second.”

  Turning around, he saw that the gap in the wall, which had been across the room, was now directly behind them. Stepping gingerly toward it, he looked down, expecting to see a wide open view of the sea.

  But the view hadn’t changed.

  He stared, his mouth slowly dropping. There was the same line of hills in the distance, there was the same toy town beside a sparkling harbor. He would have sworn the wall had turned at least a half revolution, but somehow, nothing had changed.

  He turned to face the princess. “I don’t get it.”

  She sighed. “I know how it looks, but the floor rotated, not the walls. The gap didn’t move. We swung around, get it? That’s how we move the Dwarfglass. Now it’s looking seaward, not landward. See?” She pointed at the brass contraption, which had faced the open air, but was now pointed directly at the wall.

  Triston scratched his head. “What is that thing?”

  She sighed again. And with what appeared to be very trying patience, she explained the purpose of the Dwarfglass.

  He laughed despite his wonder. “So it makes things look bigger. Weird. And . . . er, that’s how you move it around? Really? By spinning the entire floor on some sort of gigantic swivel? A bit inefficient, isn’t it? Why not just make this Dwarfglass spin instead of rotating the whole floor?”

  Abigail shrugged, seeming affronted by his amusement. “It’s dwarvish,” she repeated. “It’s ancient. You try inventing something sometime. It isn’t easy you know.”

  Triston nodded patronizingly. “OK, so now you have this Dwarfglass thing pointed out to sea, or rather, out to wall. But the opening’s still facing landward, so . . . let me guess. That middle lever rotates the wall so the gap faces seaward too?”

  “Actually, they both do. But Daddy says there’s not enough power in the engines to move the top and bottom at the same time, so we do it one by one.”

  Triston frowned, stepping nearer and looking from Abigail to the lever box and back. “The top and bottom?”

  She sighed again. “Yes. Now are you done questioning yet? It’s only a matter of time before Daddy sends someone to stop us, so we have to hurry. Here we go!”

  She yanked the middle lever, and the thunderous noise started again. As Triston watched, his impression that everything had stopped making sense the moment they’d entered this room growing all the time, the wall began to move again, in truth this time. Or rather, the bottom half began to move.

  The vast gap, alight with sky-blue, began to shift along an imperceptible line a dozen feet above the floor. The lower portion made a slow, grating revolution, eventually lining up with the Dwarfglass on the far side. The upper portion of the opening, meanwhile, remained unmoved on the far side of the room. It now resembled an enormous upper window.

  Abigail shifted the middle lever back to its off position, and before the noise had even died down, yanked at the final lever. At once the upper level began to turn.

  As the domed ceiling revolved fifty feet above him, Triston looked up and found himself mesmerized. The ceiling was white marble like the rest of the room. The golden flakes embedded within shimmered as they turned, seeming to brighten and expand the longer he stared. For a brief spell he was reminded of nights on the summit fairgrounds of Magog’s Rise. As boys, he and Ald used to rest their heads on tufts of heather and watch the celestial lights march their ancient way through the void.

  “It’s beautiful,” he muttered when the ear-splitting motion ceased.

  “What are you even looking at? The Dwarfglass and the sea are over there.”

  Triston lowered his gaze to Abigail and saw her watching him with a puzzled expression. “Nothing,” he muttered even more softly than before. “It’s just, the ceiling, the way it moved. I don’t know. I liked it.”

  She cocked her head sideways, considering him. “Where’s your friend? The older one. Why didn’t he come too?”

  “Alden? He would have, definitely. He’ll be really mad when he finds out he missed being with you.” Triston let his eyes linger on her suddenly rose-tipped cheeks, reminded of how she looked in the cool breeze earlier. “He likes you, but . . . .”

  “But what?” she asked, giving an uncharacteristically nervous laugh and tracing a hand behind her ear again.

  Triston wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say. “Uh . . . let’s go look through this Dwarfglass thingy. I haven’t had a chance yet.”

  He hurried over to the gap. Light footfalls danced up behind and before he could lower himself into the brass seat, he felt a delicate hand grasp his arm. “But what?”

  Triston hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m not sure what I wanted to say.”

  Abigail grimaced at him, then stepped past him right up to the brink, her hands on her hips, surveying the fair day. “There’s a fleet coming around Forgefire Point. That will never do, you know.”

  “What, the fleet?”

  “No,” she scoffed with a wave of her wrist at the sea. “Fleets come and go. I mean your answer.”

  “Oh.”

  She turned around. “Tell me about Alden.”

  Triston sat down and experimentally placed an eye to the aperture. The light inside the contraption shone with the same sky-blue as that beyond. “Well,” he said, hesitating again, “Alden’s always been my best friend. My only close friend since my mom died.”

  “Your mom died?” Her voice was suddenly tender. “You didn’t tell me. When did she . . . ?”

  Triston told her about Meria’s springtime battle with the White Plague, how she eventually succumbed, and how the village elders ordered their cottage burned to prevent any spreading. He spoke in a monotone, but she listened with watering eyes. “You put such a brave face on it,” she said after a short silence, “but it’s so sad. She sounds like an amazing woman.”

  Triston pretended to gaze through glass, hiding his eyes, which were threatening to betray him. “She was,” he told the open sea. “I’m sure yours was too.”

  Abigail scoffed again, spinning on her heels to face away from him. “Not like your mom. Mine had a choice so it’s not sad. She didn’t have to . . . she shouldn’t have . . . .” When her head bowed and her shoulders started to shake, Triston leapt up and ran forward to put an arm around her for the second time that day.

  “It’s not your fault,” he whispered when her shoulders grew still.

  With a startling fierceness, she tore away, glaring at him with blood-red eyes. “Of course not! It’s her fault! She chose to cheat on Daddy and when he caught them together of course he hanged the captain even though she threatened to do
it and when that bastard was dead Daddy told her to go ahead if she wanted and she just walked out there and jumped off and now Daddy blames himself and I know he still weeps at night when he thinks no one can hear and she’s to blame for everything!”

  Overwhelmed by the depth of feeling in her voice, Triston was embarrassed by a hot tear rolling down his cheeks. But when Abigail looked at his face, she gave him a watery smile and embraced him. “He was like a big brother to me before that,” she said through her snuffles, adding angrily, “Before he bedded my mom.”

  “This man, you said he was Captain of the Guard?”

  “Yes, before Mugwort. Alfie’s son, you know.” She let go, turning back to the sea. “When I was a girl he used to take me up here at night and teach me my constellations.” She made an angry guttural noise. “Completely useless, like everything else he did. They were all dwarvish it turns out and dwarvish ones are all different from ours. He was even more obsessed with dwarves than Alfie.”

  She grabbed Triston’s left hand and pointed at the horizon. “The toeless boot, the broken hammer,” she gestured at an imaginary night sky. “Dwarves are all about tragedy, Captain Ruprich used to say.” She continued pointing with his hand at different patches of blue. “The beached whale, the hanged goblin, the jilted lover, and on and on.” She suddenly let their hands fall. “My, that’s a large fleet. I wonder what’s going on? The army’s taking the land route to your village or I’d think they were sailing in to transport the men.”

  Triston stiffened. “The army’s . . . going to Wyrmskull? When? Why!”

  She pushed at his chest playfully. “You know, silly.” But when he continued to stare incredulously, she frowned. “Didn’t you hear? The scouting party returned this morning with news that—what’s it?—Wormscar? Anyway, your village was burned, they said, and those Wildmen were prowling all around. Daddy ordered the army off to destroy them right away.”

  Triston backed away, alarmed. “So, the army . . . left? They’re gone! Then who’s guarding Whitecastle? Who’s here to stop Sarconius?”

  Abigail’s frown deepened. “I don’t know. Mugwort still has the palace guard I guess, although he’s in disgrace right now. Sarconius is the guy who . . . ?” She let her voice trail away, tracing a finger over his scarred cheek.

  “Yes, and he’s coming here! I thought King Stentor knew that. Why would he send away the best protection he’s got?”

  Abigail waved her wrist again in a not to worry gesture. “Don’t tell Daddy I said this, but he usually just does whatever Alfie advises. Especially on days like today. I think he was pretty upset this morning. Where are you going?”

  Triston had run to the middle of the room and seized the entrance hatch, yanking it open. He climbed onto the first rung before turning to answer. “I just remembered something. I have to see your dad right now.”

  Triston ignored the protests of the guards on either side of the double doors and pushed them open. Abigail, plus Alden and Owain, who she and Triston had literally run into while racing down a corridor, followed hard on his heels. They found King Stentor seated at the expansive table surrounded by his counselors, most of whom were huddling around a map. Lord Strungent was speaking, pointing at the map with one hand and gesturing with a closed fist with the other. Whispered conversations buzzed all around him.

  The guards followed them in, attempting to seize Triston as silently as possible to avoid disturbing the council. Shrugging off their gripping hands, he leapt up on the table, inadvertently kicking an inkwell. Red ink to oozed over the map and the lords looked up, startled.

  “Your Majesty! An urgent message!” Triston shouted.

  Stentor watched the red puddle spread for a moment, then trained a stern gaze up at Triston, his eyebrows raised. “My son, this is most untoward. Pray give me some reason to excuse this intrusion.”

  “Pardon, Your Majesty,” shouted one of the guards behind Triston, struggling to hold a squirming Owain. “They passed me by before I knew what happened.”

  “Peace, doorward. Let him speak. Sir Slendrake?”

  “Your Majesty, a fleet approaches,” said Triston, feeling the shocked eyes of everyone in the room on him. “Meridian I believe. I think, it’s possible, Sire, Sarconius is with them. And,” he pointed a trembling hand at Alfrich, sitting next to the king with a half-amused look on his face, “the Lord Chamberlain is on their side. He’s a traitor, Sire.”

  Alfrich’s half-smile vanished. Gasps and the sharp intake of breath filled the room. Stentor slowly looked from Triston to the chamberlain and back to Triston, his face flushing puce. “Boy, I warn you, I will hold you responsible for every word. You are old enough to know the gravity of such a charge if proven false or even careless. Now, how comes this accusation?”

  But before Triston could answer, Mugwort, who had been sitting unnoticed behind the lords, a ways off as if he was no longer welcome in the inner circle, stood and addressed the king. “Your Majesty, I was on the wall not a quarter hour ago. The watchman gave no word of any fleet.”

  He sat, but Abigail leapt on the table and stood beside Triston. At the same moment Alden and Owain broke free of the restraining guards and scrambled up after her. “Father, it’s true. I saw them too. Wargalleys, a fleet of them. They sail hard by the coast, out of view of the wall-watch until they round Harper’s End. They’ll be here in less than two hours. I know because we . . . we were up in the Dwarven Turret.”

  “The Dwarven Turret! It’s off limits. I expressly forbade you!” The king took a moment to compose himself, his face darkened to match the wooden table. The lords all around fell into anxious whispers.

  “Now see here,” Stentor broke across their murmurings. “No fleet can threaten this citadel while the high alert I ordered three days ago stands. The Fangwall has never failed us yet. So one thing at a time.” He took a deep breath, and all were silent. “Now, about my chamberlain, Sir Slendrake! You have issued a most dire charge against him. You will come down here and explain at once. As for the rest of you, get off my table!”

  Triston was still pointing a finger at Alfrich. The chamberlain had not taken his eyes off him, but was regarding him with unnerving calm. Triston didn’t move, but locked eyes with the king. “He –the white knife, Sire—he has it. The same as Sarconius. And he ordered the army sent off at the worst possible time. I know he’s a traitor.”

  A vein began to throb in Stentor’s temple. “I ordered the army on a necessary mission. I command here. But of what knife do you speak, son?”

  Alfrich rose. “If I may, Majesty. Triston, er, that is, Sir Slendrake,” he amended ironically, “was disturbed by the ceremonial knife I wore to your daughter’s birthday celebration. Apparently it resembled that weapon which damaged his face and though I am sympathetic, Sire, surely we all agree there are innumerable knives in this world and many of them happen to be made of bone.”

  He leaned in toward the king’s ear, speaking in a whisper which nevertheless carried so that all could hear. “Sire, the boy has been through much trauma. Perhaps if you would have the guards escort him to his room to rest, and I suggest send a healer to interview him when he wakes. For my part I forgive this charge and beg that you show him all the mercy your heart can muster.”

  “Fair words, chamberlain.” Stentor motioned to the doorwards. “You will take this young man to his room. Triston, don’t resist or things will not go well for you.”

  The guards clambered onto the table, its polished boards groaning beneath the weight of six people, and tried to approach Triston. But Alden placed a threatening hand on one of their necks and another on a knife hilt at his belt. They both halted, looking nervously at Stentor for instructions.

  Mugwort leapt up. “Treachery, Sire! You! Unhand that man!” He made to leap on the table, but Alden strode forward and kicked out hard. A sickening crunch reverberated around the room and Mugwort went flying, two gold teeth and a spray of blood bursting from his mouth.

  “Your Majesty!�
� said Triston, as Stentor rose, trembling with rage. All around the lords shouted their outrage and drew swords. “If you would listen for one moment please! I only just remembered when I was in the turret. Sarconius, ages ago, Sire, the first time I saw him, I remember what he said. He showed Gorbald—that’s our Chief—he showed him a white knife, and he said it was dragonbone, and that it was priceless, and he said it was a gift from the emperor. He said there was only one other like it in the world. And I’m telling you, Alfrich has the other one! Whoever gave Sarconius his knife bestowed its twin on Alfrich, so I say they’re working for the same man. And then I heard that Alfrich had you send off the army, and I know you do what he says so now the army’s gone, and we’re dead when the wargalleys get here!”

  The king looked on the verge of seizing a blade himself and driving Triston through. But at the same time, he listened to every word. When Triston ceased, Stentor only stood and stared up at him, his chest heaving. Meanwhile, Alfrich was once again regarding Triston with an amused expression.

  Triston suddenly remembered something else. “Ah! Your Majesty. I’d nearly forgotten! Sarconius’ knife had the emperor’s crest, the crowned earth, emblazoned in gold on one side. Alfrich may have concealed it at the party, but I believe if you check his rooms you will find just such a seal on his own dragonbone knife.”

  Stentor turned to Alfrich. “Lord Chamberlain, I would have this matter over at once. The false accuser and his ruffian friends will be hanged, but I would see his charge proven utterly false first. Do you carry a weapon with such a seal?”

  “The weapon is in my living chambers, Sire, but I would never bear a foreign lord’s crest as you know.”

  “And may I see this knife with my own eyes before I order the execution?”

  Alfrich bowed his head. “That would be well, Sire. I have asked for mercy for these children but His Majesty will rule as he sees fit.”